This week’s photo is from back in 2016. Certainly it seems to be from before my cameras did any automatic location tagging. OneDrive claims it was taken in Halbeath. If you know the area I’m sure you’ll agree that’s unlikely. The other photos I have from the same time offer no additional clues as to where I was when I took it, and I have no clear recollection. In my defence a whole bunch of stuff has happened since and 2016 seems pretty distant at this point.
So a bit of a mystery then. Surely a good thing in a writing prompt. Let’s replace ‘what is it?’ with ‘what does it want to be?’
I gazed across the water, toward the sunset and tried to feel, well, anything really. It was beautiful, I suppose. Bright flame highlights rippled on the dappled blue expanse. The dark back-lit trees whispered secrets into the wind. Some such torpid twaddle anyway.
Books were often like that. The ones I’d read, at least. They wax lyrical about such things as if they were of great import when really it’s just a ball of rock turning a little so a different part of its surface is in shadow. And yet somehow I’m supposed to feel something. Beyond boredom, that is. If trite novels were to be believed scenes like these were supposed to be packed with emotion and romance.
I tried to convince my sigh to be a little more like contentment. Maybe that was the trick. Fake it ’til you make it. Of course, attitudes like that are allegedly part of the problem. I’m meant to embrace the experience. Whatever that means.
This was supposed to be relaxing. A time to unplug and get away from it all. Unwind and let the beauty of it wash over me. Ridiculous. Can you think of anything more foolish than setting aside a fixed time, with a firm end-point. A deadline, if you will, by which you must be relaxed or else. You see the problem, right?
My attention strayed back to the ‘beautiful’ sunset. Thinking about it this was worse than getting me nowhere. Usually I was busy enough to drown out the nagging goblin of self-doubt. Now he was murmuring his poisons not into my ear but directly into my mind.
“This doesn’t move you because you’re dead inside.”
“Broken.”
“Freak.”
That same goblin raises its head when its time to dance. It is widely accepted that the urge to gyrate rhythmically to music is a universal human truth. Which is obvious nonsense. Just because music doesn’t spur you into motion doesn’t mean it doesn’t move you at all. A soul can exalt in its own way, can’t it? That doesn’t make it damaged, does it?
The thought is steadying. The sunset is no longer a trap to strip away my flesh and reveal a heartless robot within. Others may find the scene lovely, and I wish them every happiness in that. It’s a sunset and if it is less interesting to me then that’s fine. Your joy does not invalidate my experience, and neither does my apathy detract from yours.
A feeling of peace settling over me at last. Perhaps that’s what was meant to happen all along. Is that it? Do sunsets work on me after all?
As I turned away movement caught my eye. A blob of black had appeared in the water. I estimated it to be at least three kilometres away. To be visible at this distance whatever it was had to be enormous. I fumbled my binoculars out of my bag and pressed them to my eyes. With the sun where it was details would be hard to make out, but perhaps the silhouette would tell me something.
The focussing dial was stiff from disuse but as I dragged the image into sharpness my breath caught in my throat and my heart hammered a quick-step march. A long neck arched out of the water raising its proud head skyward. The creatures cry sang clear and crisp in the evening air. My binoculars tugged their cord then bounced against my chest. I started to run for the beach as a second cry split the air.
Brandon Lim 